“Don’t act like it’s your fault, Maggie. Don’t act like you did something to deserve it.”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“You’re not the type.”
Maggie shook her head. “You don’t even know me.”
“Anyone who is around you five seconds can see what a jewel you are.”
Maggie looked to the ceiling and shook her head.
“What?” he asked.
“This is the strangest enigma of my life, Zeke. You are the strangest enigma of my life!”
He smiled. “Thank you.”
Maggie shook her head again. “That wasn’t necessarily a compliment.”
“But I chose to take it as one.”
“Why?”
“Why not, Maggie? So much of life is simply what we want to believe, isn’t it?”
His words hung in the air.
“We look out of a prism,” he continued, “but what if it’s not the right view? One quarter turn to the right changes everything.”
Maggie didn’t answer.
“You know I’m right about this.”
Maggie stared at the fire, not disagreeing with him so much as feeling confused. “I don’t know how to have a conversation with you.”
“But we are having a conversation. Quite a fine one, too.”
“Fine for who?’
“Whom.”
Maggie glared at him. “You’re correcting my grammar?”
“Well if you’re going to be a writer, Maggie, you need to get that straight.”
“How is it that you have it straight, Zeke?”
“I’ve had some years to observe things.”
“But you don’t know how old you are. Or you just won’t tell me?”
His expression was impossible to read. “I haven’t been keeping track. My perspective changed, Maggie. The things that are important to me changed. Yours would, too, if you were in my position.”
“Help me understand your position, Zeke. What is it, exactly? And what changed it?”
He stared at her, amusement dancing in his eyes. After several seconds passed he sighed. “I feel badly that I’ve interrupted your work time, Maggie. I simply wanted to compliment you on not being mad at Tom. It lets me know you’re going to be okay.” He pointed behind her. “If I read one of those books on your stack could you get some writing done?”
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Switch gears like that? Where did that come from?”
“I got to thinking about what you came here for, not to gab with me, but to get started on your book.”
Not to gab with me. That was a phrase Mr. Thompson had used. Was that simply the way folks talked here in Marston County? Was Zeke from Marston County? He knew this place was a rental.
“I don’t remember mentioning that I was working on a book, per se,” said Maggie.
“Isn’t it obvious? You came here to write so you must be writing a book. And you weren’t expecting a man to show up in the middle of the night. You’d likely be working on that book right now if I wasn’t here to distract you.”
Maybe this was an out for her. Maybe he was going to leave now. “Can I drive you somewhere, Zeke? Home, perhaps?”
He looked around at the window. “In this snow? I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“My car handles well in the snow.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Weren’t you on your way somewhere?”
There was that impossible to read expression again, like he knew a secret and wasn’t telling. “I was on my way here, Maggie. I saw your light.”
Maggie took a deep breath. “Okay. So you’re here. Now what?”
Zeke lifted his hands innocently. “I need to let you work. Get back to writing!”
“I don’t think I can concentrate.”
“I’ll sit in the kitchen. Pretend I’m not here.”
When Maggie didn’t answer, he leaned over her and picked up her laptop. His upper body grazed her shoulder. “This is your computer, isn’t it?”
For a moment, as he looked into her eyes, she thought he was going to kiss her. She held her breath, but he looked down at the MacBook Pro instead, turning it in his hands. “These used to be so large.” After inspecting it, he set the computer in her lap and opened the lid. “Work,” he whispered.
Then he jumped off the couch, selected one of the books she’d brought—a copy of Patrick O’Brien’s Master and Commander—and went into the kitchen. She heard the barstool by the phone scrape across the wooden floor, then creak under his weight.
Maggie stared at her computer screen.
After a moment he called, “I don’t hear any writing, Maggie.”
“It doesn’t make a lot of noise.”
“It does on a computer. Use your computer.” She started plucking the keys to quiet him.
I don’t hear any writing, Maggie, Zeke called from the kitchen. And who is Zeke, you ask? Well…that was the question with which Maggie was currently grabbling. Zeke’s true identity remained shrouded in mystery.
Twenty pages and two hours later, he was standing in front of her. “You hungry, Maggie?”
She jumped, having forgotten that he was anything more than a fabrication.
Zeke checked the fire and folded the laundry, then came to look over her shoulder in the kitchen. “Is that dough going to be another loaf of your wonderful bread? Any chance we could add raisins and cinnamon?”
Maggie’s hand stilled. She had just been reaching for both items in the cabinet. “Okay,” she said, having a déjà vu feeling, as if she were writing all this instead of it really happening.
He opened the refrigerator door and pulled out the roll of foil. “What’s this?”
“Molasses cookies.”
When he turned to her his eyes were big. This time he did kiss her, on the forehead, so fast Maggie didn't have time to react. “How did I get so lucky?” He grinned like a boy, his face filled with wonder.
For lunch they made chili, topped with shredded cheese and corn chips, followed by hot molasses cookies. Zeke ate so many Maggie was surprised when he appeared in front of her computer again four hours later, ready to help make supper. This time it was penne pasta with chicken and vegetables.
“My word!” Zeke exclaimed, drizzling a balsamic dressing Maggie mixed up over a green salad. She added in those last few drops of white wine—that was a Margaret Raines secret. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”
Maggie didn’t answer, just handed him a bottle of Pinot Noir. He uncorked it and filled two glasses. She lit candles. They sat with knees touching on the sofa afterward and watched the film version of Master and Commander, each tearing up when Captain Aubrey was forced to make the hard decision to cut the rope resulting in the loss of a young seaman.
Zeke handed her a tissue from the box.
As the movie ended she blew her nose. “Now you know how it ends. You won’t want to finish reading the book.”
“No, I’ll finish. Tomorrow. I figure I have one more day.”
Maggie had nestled into the crook of the arm Zeke threw across the back of the sofa, but raised up now to look at him. What did he mean by that? Zeke had been in the cabin one day and part of a night and he felt like…well…like he belonged there…like they’d been friends a long time and now would be forever.
He reached in his back pocket. “Do you have a charger for the phone? Battery’s nearly dead. That’s what this little bar means, right?”
Maggie turned off the television and went to get the charger. When she returned Zeke was standing at the window looking out. The sky was black, the land a white carpet. The pasta, the wine, more warm cookies, and a blanket over their feet during the movie had wrapped Maggie like a glove all evening.
She came to him and held out the charger. He took it and kissed her on the forehead again, slower this time, with lips that pressed like silk against her s
kin. No one had kissed Maggie in months. When did Tom and I stop kissing? She missed it.
“Thank you, Maggie. This was all so lovely.”
She held her breath as Zeke held her head in his hands. One twist and he could kill me. This man could break my neck. One of Tom’s friends was a chiropractor who insisted one person couldn’t really break another’s neck with a sharp twist. That was a trick solely for Hollywood. But Maggie wasn’t sure she believed him.
Even as these thoughts ran through her mind, others…unbidden…crowded in. I want him to kiss me. I want to be touched. I want this man to undress me this time.
But he didn’t. His hands dropped down to hers and gave them a squeeze. “Good night, Maggie.”
“Good night, Zeke.”
She walked past the fire, past the dirty dishes on the dining table she would worry about tomorrow and went to the bathroom. After getting ready for bed Maggie eased under the coverlet and went to sleep.
10
The Shirelles first asked the question in 1960 and women have been wondering ever since: "Will you still love me...tomorrow?"
Canon stood in his kitchen cooking eggs. It was still dark out. He threw three sausage patties in the pan. Shirley tried to get him to switch over to turkey bacon, but Canon liked pork sausage. He bought it local, fresh ground.
He ate standing, looking out the back door at the porch where he liked to take his coffee in warmer weather. Snow still covered the farm, and would for a bit longer. Temperatures weren’t predicted to rise for another couple of days.
Rita was on his mind again…Ollie…a killer dragging a body up a hill…a dark-haired woman…a clawfoot tub. Two nights in a row he’d had snippets of the same dream sequence. He couldn’t figure out why.
Not that Canon put much stock in a dream. He was nothing if not practical. Life had taught him that. Rita taught him. His father. Canon’s livelihood was built on facts, not fiction. So he didn’t put any stock in dreams. But he’d never had one two nights in a row like that.
Every now and then someone brought information to the office built on a cloud. They had a dream. They had a feeling. They might have seen something. They thought they heard a noise, a voice. Like the folks who claimed they could hear laughter near that old Indian mound on Treetop Ridge.
Whatever.
Canon couldn’t arrest on a cloud. He couldn’t build cases on dreams or sounds near an Indian mound just because it made the hairs on the back of someone’s neck rise up. So Canon didn’t know what to do with this dream.
He knew he needed to go check on Ollie, but there would be more accidents today. That prison escape wouldn’t leave his mind, either. He’d like for that to be resolved before riding out to Patterson Road in case Ollie saw it on the news.
When the eggs and sausage were gone, he set the pan in the sink. Canon rarely bothered with a plate. Why dirty another dish?
On his way back up the stairs, through the bathroom door from the bedroom, he glanced at the picture of Rita on the wall. The calendar would flip over in a matter of days. Another year without her. Canon didn’t know why he had started keeping track of the years until his retirement. More time to knock around the farm might not be a welcome thing.
* * *
The next morning Maggie woke to the smell of coffee and bacon frying. The room was flooded with light again. She stretched luxuriantly.
A strange man is still in my cabin. And she was strangely at peace with that.
Mid-day found her sitting at the dining table. She had abandoned her initial project and began writing about her strange visitor instead, trying to capture his spirit, his mannerisms, his dialog.
Zeke walked slowly through the cabin, the cut on his right leg causing a slight lilt in his gait. He seemed to be taking stock of things.
“What’s this switch for?” Zeke stood at the front windows. He looked outside, then back over his shoulder at Maggie. He had already tested the porch light. That switch plate was on the right side of the door.
Maggie hesitated, wondering if she should tell him.
“What’s it for, Maggie?” he asked again, his eyes boring into hers. “I know you know.”
She’d grown pretty comfortable with him by now and didn’t think he intended to hurt her, but still…Zeke hadn’t answered a lot of her questions.
“It makes the windows opaque from the outside.”
“Ah,” he said, as though a mystery were solved.
The switch was up, but now he raked it down. He glanced at her before opening the door. She didn’t move as he stepped out onto the porch and peered back in through the front window. I could run lock the door and call the police.
But she didn’t.
Zeke came back inside. “Does it work on all the windows?”
“I think so.”
“What about the skylights?” He stepped under the living room skylights and inspected them. They were still covered with snow.
“Mr. Thompson said they did.”
Zeke whipped his head toward her. “Who?’
“Mr. Thompson. The caretaker who lives down the road.”
“The caretaker.” Zeke stared at her, unblinking. “When was the last time he was here?”
“The day I arrived. The day after Christmas.”
“Christmas.” Zeke’s brow furrowed. “When was Christmas?”
How could he not know this?
“Sunday,” she said.
“What day is this?”
“Friday.”
“Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve?” Zeke had worn a lot of looks since he’d been in the cabin—tired, amused, knowing—but not confused. This was the first time Maggie had seen him confused.
She nodded. Maggie expected him to ask what year it was next—2016 until midnight tomorrow—but he didn’t.
Strange.
Zeke walked back through the cabin to the kitchen. Maggie heard him open the back door and step out, apparently checking the windows on the back of the house. He presently came inside again and locked the door. Then she heard him open cabinets in the kitchen, the bathroom, as if he were cataloguing items in the cabin.
He poked his head through the door to the living room. “You have some paper and a pen I can borrow?”
Maggie pulled a sheet from her journal and handed it to him, along with a pen. He went back to the kitchen. She heard a creak. The red stool had become a favorite perch for him.
Sometime later—Maggie kept losing track of time—he looked in again. “What do you want for lunch?”
Her computer said it was after one o’clock. Maggie’s stomach confirmed it by rumbling.
“We still have some chili,” she said.
“Don’t get up. I’ll fix it.”
In less than two days they had developed an odd rhythm, the words on Maggie’s screen coming so effortlessly—the hours on her laptop clock flying by so quickly—she could hardly believe it.
Maggie listened to the comforting sounds of Zeke pulling out a pan and opening the refrigerator door. Soon the smell of the warmed-over chili and fresh grilled cheese sandwiches filled the air.
Maggie cooked dinner later that day: Brown Sugar Salmon with asparagus and baked potatoes. They finished off the Pinot—a whole cluster from Oregon’s Willamette Valley Maggie had brought from home. Tom used to order it by the case. It was Maggie’s favorite.
As they lingered at the dining table, swirling the red liquid in their glasses, listening to the fire, Zeke said quietly, “Leave that switch down on the windows, Maggie. Promise me.” His gaze bore into her. “Don’t ever be afraid to let folks in.”
Maggie was still mulling over this instruction when he added. “And remember, there are stories all around you.”
Before she could think of a good response, he spoke again. “If you could go back and make different choices, right from the beginning to avoid the pain, would you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I wouldn’t have Robbie and Cal.
And…”
“Yes?”
“Look, I think I know where you’re going with this. Even if we’d never had Robbie and Cal, I wouldn’t go back and choose not to love Tom. Loving Tom was never a mistake.”
“Exactly!” Zeke was back to his knowing look…training her…instructing her. “Loving anyone is never a mistake, Maggie. Remember that.”
“But it hurts that Tom didn’t love me back.”
Zeke cocked his head. “Who says Tom didn’t love you back?”
“He betrayed me, Zeke. He slept with his receptionist.”
Zeke nodded slowly, as if sifting and weighing her words. “If a person doesn’t honor their commitment to you, you could call it betrayal. But I think of it as a forfeit instead—a forfeit of the sanctity of what could have been. ‘Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.’”
Where had Maggie heard that quote?
“What’s happening with that other person is often the greater tragedy,” Zeke continued. “We’re all flawed, Maggie. Every one of us forfeits gifts that are right under our noses. Prison was one of the greatest gifts I ever received. Remember to include that. It offered the maturing of my soul just like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn claimed.”
“Who? What do you mean by that?” Maggie hadn’t told Zeke she was writing about him.
“Just file that away. You’ll know what to do with it.”
Maggie was typically a one-glass-of-wine woman, but tonight she’d had two. How was that even possible? A glass for her and Zeke the night before, and a glass for each of them tonight. Weren’t there only four glasses in a bottle? But somehow she had two. And while Zeke’s comment seemed strange on the one hand, on the other it was smooth…natural…and settled on her ears like the warmth of the fire on her skin. She didn’t question it, only lounged in its comfort.
At some point they moved to the couch for another movie—The Lake House, one of Maggie’s favorites—about a man and woman separated by two years in time, but who connected through letters delivered through the mailbox of a rental house.
Then Maggie was asleep. Zeke was kissing her, real kisses this time. Warm. Faintly familiar. Pleasant. She was thinking how intimate it felt, lying so close beside him on the couch, like she was lying in the very palm of his hand, her body molding perfectly into each rise and bend of his. Maggie had wondered every night since Tom’s pronouncement if she would ever be held again…held…cared for…known.
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